Monday, July 8, 2013

1000 is a badass series of animations you can help fund on Kickstarter

Imagine a vibrant, urban fantasy world featuring magic, demons, vampires, dragons, and more. It sounds like the premise to a great pen-and-paper roleplaying game, comic book, or video game, and maybe some day it will be! But first, 1000 will be a series of 90-second animations... if it succeeds in its Kickstarter. This project looks like the start of a creative and exciting new setting, and the fact that it's on Kickstarter means that anyone can help it become a reality. You can learn more about the project by visiting their page on Kickstarter.

When I first saw the video on their Kickstarter and scrolled down to the character designs, I was immediately enthralled. The characters look like badasses. The creators look both talented and excited to be working on the project. The world, from what was provided, sounds a little generic, but it hits all the right notes for me. I love the idea of a team of monster hunters (some of whom are monsters) who fight bad guys. It's not an original idea, but I don't care. This sounds exactly like the sort of thing I would be into.

Tales of Alethrion is another Kickstarter project for a series of animations about heroes fighting monsters. If I fund 1000 as well, does that mean I will fund every such project on Kickstarter? I will probably want to! That's the danger of Kickstarter: not only does it allow users to purchase cool things directly from the creators, but it gives the users the good feeling of having helped make the project possible. Who hasn't wanted to be a patron for the arts, especially when "the arts" in this case can be anything from video games to comics to bottle openers?

I am still struggling to find the best approach to Kickstarter, but this seems to help: focusing on what I'm getting for my donation, and reminding myself that this project doesn't rely exclusively on me. I find it easy to slip into the assumption that what I am really paying for is to make something great happen, which feels great but is not ultimately very satisfying when I remember that the money for Kickstarter comes from the same bank account I use to pay the rent and buy groceries! So instead I should focus on what I am getting for my money, and ask myself: if this were not a Kickstarter, and I were being charged the same amount for the same thing at a regular store, would I still want to buy it?

I'm still undecided on what I will do with 1000. It might come down to what other rewards the creators offer to backers. Right now, $20 for 12 minutes of animation seems rather steep, considering you can buy a DVD of an animated movie for less money and get 90 minutes of animation. Maybe if they throw in a PDF of that comic they show in the Kickstarter video to seal the deal!